Garry Kasparov: A History of Profesional Chess

4/8/2002 – At the end of February Yasser Seirawan presented a detailed
proposal for sorting out the chaos that current afflicts top-level chess.
Soon after that Garry
Kasparov replied directly to Seirawan's proposal. Michael ("Mig")
Greengard, who had spent the weekend interviewing the world's number one player
in New York, also got a full chronology of the GMA and the PCA from Kasparov.
He now passes ít on to the chess public in an extensive keynote article here.

A Recent History of Professional Chess with Garry Kasparov

Using the past to help the present "History not used is nothing, for
all intellectual life is action, like practical life, and if you don’t use the
stuff—well, it might as well be dead." -- A. J. Toynbee

It
is no coincidence that the political upheavals in the chess world in the past
16 years coincide with the domination of the chess board by Garry Kasparov.
His style of play -- dynamic, aggressive, mercurial -- also reflects his temperament
in the realm of business and political negotiations, where these attributes
are often more a handicap than an advantage. And while you can easily lose count
of Kasparov’s tournament triumphs, his victories in the political arena have
been few and fleeting.

An old business proverb says that pioneers are the ones who get filled full
of arrows and Kasparov has more than his share of scars to prove it. Time and
again he has led the charge to change the chess world and he has often met with
Apache war cries from those he was trying to help. A list of his ventures includes
a trade union for players, professional sponsorship, a world championship cycle
and match outside of FIDE, and an international tournament grand prix (twice).
That several of these undertakings were in part destroyed by the same Kasparov
energy that built them does not diminish the level of dedication and passion
they represent.

Critics have said that these efforts stemmed from self-interest on the part
of Kasparov, and he would be the last person to say he has only been motivated
by altruism. If Kasparov was looking out for himself while trying to create
meaningful changes in the chess world, that is not a crime. If in some cases
he had the most to gain, he almost always had the most to lose, and it is to
his credit that he continued the fight regardless. His so-called war against
FIDE is almost older than the current FIDE champion and he continues to assert
that a counterbalance to the official federation is essential. Now that dissatisfaction
with FIDE is again on the rise thanks to their recent experiments with the world
championship, drug testing, and short time controls, it is the perfect time
to look back and see how exactly we arrived at such a bleak situation.

Kasparov’s lengthy discourse was more a history lesson than a press release
or plan of attack. He told the tale of his efforts from the birth of the Grandmaster
Association (GMA) in his Dubai hotel room in 1986 to the collapse of the Professional
Chess Association in 1996. Several times he emphasized that this was only his
take on things, his memories, and that he welcomed contributions and corrections
from others. More than wanting to set the record straight, Kasparov wants to
use the past to help the present. Many of the problems faced by the GMA and
the PCA are still relevant issues today.

American GM Yasser Seirawan, author of the “Fresh Start” proposal that has stirred
up so much activity lately, was a co-founder of the GMA and continues to be
an important activist on the chess scene. He was kind enough to help with this
article, both in supplying his memories and archives of his now defunct magazine,
“Inside Chess” and by providing valuable perspective to many of Kasparov’s
recollections.

Kasparov summarized his stance eloquently after talking for over an hour, and
his conclusion serves as a perfect introduction.

“Now, no matter how upset some people are about the past, or what negative
memories they have, what I want is for people to read these stories and see
that we are not starting from scratch. “Fresh Start” is a good figure of speech
but there is a history here and we have to learn from it. I’m quite happy for
others to give their suggestions based on our experience, which is the most
valuable things we have. It would be foolish to ignore the past.”

Allow me an “Amen.” From a call to unite in 2002 we look back to the controversial
Dubai Olympiad at the end of 1986. Several teams had boycotted because the Arab
nation would not permit the Israeli team to participate, a sad situation that
certainly made many wonder if FIDE was in its collective right mind. Several
other recent events already had tensions high. One was the way FIDE President
Florencio Campomanes had aborted the 1984-85 Karpov-Kasparov world championship
marathon match. Another was the collapse of the Lucena/Keene ticket that had
tried to take power from Campomanes in 1986. There had been so much politicking
and double-dealing by various federations that, according to Kasparov, “we all
began to think that it was useless to try and find a solution with FIDE unless
we had our own trade union to protect our professional livelihood and the game
itself.”

Seirawan points out that if the Kasparov-backed Lucena bid for the FIDE presidency
had succeeded, it is unlikely that the GMA would have been founded. When Campomanes
maintained his grasp the formation of a players union, Plan B, as it were, was
essential.

Apart from discussing the topics of the day, Kasparov added, “By the way, there
were still many people who remembered the vote in 1975 when the small federations
decided the fate of Bobby Fischer. It was just not appropriate that these small
federations had the same vote as the USSR and the other chess powers and that
these votes could decide everything in the lives of professional chessplayers,
including the rules of the world championship match.”

WE, THE GRANDMASTERS OF THE WORLD…

The Grandmaster Association’s primordial constitution was scribbled on a napkin
in Kasparov’s hotel room at the Dubai Hilton. The small group of players was
joined by businessman Bessel Kok, then the CEO of the SWIFT corporation. Conversation
centered around protecting the players’ interests at a time when FIDE under
Campomanes had reached a then-record level of corruption and confusion. Kasparov’s
approach to FIDE about the creation of the GMA was less than auspicious.

“During the Olympiad I had a rest day (Karpov played board one against Georgiev)
and I went to the FIDE General Assembly to present our case. There was this
FIDE delegate, from Syria I think, who was shouting at me, “What is this, Grandmaster
Association? Next an IM association! They have to obey the rules!” It’s unheard
of in any professional sport, this pawn yelling at the world champion. And there
were even other delegates who backed him up.

Eventually it ended up with FIDE giving its permission, they all thought that
it would be a failure. Everybody expected there would be fighting amongst the
players, that there would be a lack of money, etc. But that was a mistake.”

Those assumptions were not wholly incorrect since a level of inevitable infighting
in the GMA existed from the beginning. But the players were more dedicated than
FIDE believed and it survived the first crucial months. The first Board was
Jan Timman (Netherlands), Ljubomir Ljubojevic (Yugoslavia), Lajos Portisch (Hungary),
John Nunn (England), Yasser Seirawan (USA), Anatoly Karpov, and Kasparov, both
USSR. The key player, however, was from Brussels and was no Grandmaster.

The involvement of Bessel Kok was the difference between the GMA being a serious
and professional organization and being just a loose alliance of players. He
and his then-wife Pierette, a lawyer, put together the necessary legal apparatus
and raised money for the nascent organization. Kok, who has recently returned
to the chess world with big events in his new base of Prague, provided a crucial
guiding hand as well as a deep pocket. The GMA office in Brussels was run by
Angela Day, and Seirawan calls her the glue that kept things together. Among
many other things, she produced the GMA newsletter and arranged agendas and
meetings. The assembled board of players knew a lot about chess, but had a lot
to learn about what they wanted and how to get it.

“We didn’t have a clear plan, we were running in the dark. We had no experience.
We had ideas about the GMA, the world championship, but there was nothing fixed.
We were pioneers. There were conflicts within the GMA as well. There was the
traditional view, primarily from Karpov and Portisch, who wanted to stick with
FIDE as an affiliated organization. Were we to be an affiliated group or an
independent organization? That was a key moment. Eventually, as you can guess,
the vote was for an independent trade union. The majority of the board decided
to be independent and to work with FIDE, but not be a part of it.”

The office in Brussels was the focal point. Dutch GM Jan Timman, not present
in Dubai because his team was boycotting the event, was the vice-president and
a key figure. Lubomir Kavalek, a Czech émigré to the US, was later brought in
as technical director and fundraiser. He was responsible for organizing the
remarkable World Cup tournament series that became the permanent landmark of
the GMA. Seirawan highlights the importance of Anatoly Karpov’s participation.
“Karpov was not only a former World Champion he was the second strongest player
in the world. His support for the GMA was vital.”

Both Kasparov and Seirawan speak fondly of the early days of the GMA. It was
a time of big ideas and big changes. Items on the table included a player retirement
fund, sponsorship for more tournaments, game copyrights, and, of course, the
world chess championship. The subject of time controls had yet to rear its ugly
head.

In the earliest days the board was everything, but this changed in 1988. Kasparov
states: “We knew the board couldn’t run it forever so we needed to build
the membership and have assemblies. The first one was in April, 1988, after
the first Grand Prix in Brussels. That was a great system, by the way, classical
chess (no debates at that time, it was the only game we knew). We wanted to
build the professional world on the cornerstones of the past.

Yes, we made mistakes, perhaps we could have been more progressive. But it was
important to preserve these elements of the past and to do it on our own, without
FIDE’s dictate.”

TAKING ACTION ON ACTIVE CHESS

Speaking of classical chess (a good example of a retronym), it was around this
time that the first threats to the heritage of how the game was played were
beginning to surface. Interestingly similar concepts would come from both FIDE
and Kasparov, but with very different intent. FIDE was proposing a rapid (30/min.
per player) championship tournament that would, and this is the key, also be
good for rating points and international “active” titles. Many players were
horrified and the GMA mobilized to prevent the worst. Meanwhile, Kasparov was
playing in what could be called the first chess spectacular of the modern era.

“The first big speed match was played in February, 1987, between me and Nigel
Short. We played in the famous Hippodrome discotheque in London at 25 minutes
per side, on a fancy stage in tuxedos. [They played at g/25 instead of
g/30 so the games would fit into the one-hour television slot! This control
continues to be standard today. –Mig] I won 4-2 with no draws, it was
a great event. I remember showing the tape to my colleagues in Brussels. There
was an opinion in the room that it was a form of prostitution! There were strong
opinions back then that rapid chess was a threat. In my view, then and now,
rapid chess is an excellent tool to promote the game. Now they are talking about
getting television coverage, commercial sponsorship, etc. We discussed this
15 years ago! And we reached a consensus on how to use rapid chess, within limits.
We realized it was great for promotion.

Now we come to the first GMA general assembly. We had over 100 members already.
(At its peak we had probably 95% of all the GMs in the world.) I would say we
had 100+ represented in Brussels. We had a proxy system, and thanks to Bessel
we had a professional organization that allowed the entire thing to function.

The big topic was that FIDE had announced a rapid tournament, a rapid chess
world championship. Not just promotional, but one in which they could give titles,
including the GM title. That was Campomanes’ idea. They were already frightened
of the GMA and wanted to dilute our influence. So the key debate of this assembly
was how to deal with this threat. You hear everyone talking about time controls
now and we have already lived through this. We had the same fears back then.

It was a tough situation because some of the players thought it was okay, and
they wanted to play. Many others thought it was clearly a threat, a danger,
and we should boycott it completely. There was a strong resolution by GMA member
Valery Salov, then a big enemy of FIDE! [In recent years Salov has become
a zealous FIDE supporter. – Mig] He proposed the outright condemnation
of anyone who played in that tournament. I remember Lajos Portisch nearly crying,
leaving the stage, saying he was resigning because no one could condemn him
for his professional activities. It was a very hard moment, an emotional crisis.

In the end we passed a compromise solution that we wouldn’t denounce anyone
who played there, but that we condemned giving titles, that we did not recognize
the validity of a world champion of rapid chess or GM of rapid chess.”

Yasser Seirawan has helped greatly by digging through both his own memories
and his archives of Inside Chess, the American chess magazine that he
published for over a decade. Both sources concur that it was Kasparov, not Salov,
who introduced the motion of “moral condemnation” at the GMA. (Salov’s proposal
for a boycott of the FIDE event had come earlier and he sided with Kasparov
on these issues.) While naming names is really not the point – or at least should
not be the point – of this article, it does serve the purpose of highlighting
Kasparov’s strong anti-FIDE stance at an early stage. It wasn’t rapid chess
that was the problem, it was FIDE’s rapid chess and its use for titles and ratings.

In the end FIDE did go on to create a parallel rapid chess rating system and
to drop the idea of titles based on rapid play. (They called it “active chess”
back then, prompting many jokes about a potential “passive vs. active” break
in the chess world. As Kasparov jokes, “Did that mean I played passive chess?”)
Of note is that this rapid world championship, which took place at the end of
1988 in Mazatlán, Mexico, was a factor in another GMA crisis. In Seirawan’s
“Fresh Start” article he mentions that he resigned from the GMA board when Kasparov
asked. The story behind Seirawan’s resignation at the beginning of September,
1988, is a disputed one and beyond the scope of this article, but the basic
storyline is as follows.

Kasparov states that after the GMA assembly rejected FIDE’s plans for the rapid
event they found out that Seirawan was an active supporter of the Mazatlán event.
“Bessel asked Yasser to resign on behalf of the board, and he did. Everybody
is responsible for his or her actions, and things were not so simple as to be
summarized in one sentence. Everyone has their own views but if the views are
contradictory to those of the organization, and someone does something alien
to the interests of the organization, he has to resign. Perhaps that incident
caused some bad blood, and for years after that Yasser’s views of everything
I did were negative.”

That last sentence is not uncharacteristic of Kasparov when he really gets going.
Although by his own admission things were quite complicated at the time, there
is a tendency for memory to reduce everything to a binary formula. If you weren’t
for him, you were against him, and not just what he stood for and what he wanted
to do, but against him personally. There is no doubt that personal friendship
and animosity have both played large parts in Kasparov’s successes and failures
throughout his career, but as he says himself there were also splits on the
issues.

Seirawan’s interest in active chess was inspired by nothing less than the Kasparov-Short
speed match and he set out to use rapid chess to as a promotional tool. To this
end he supported the Mazatlán event and two years later helped create the FIDE-I.C.E.
rapid chess rating list, for which he engaged in a membership drive using his
magazine, Inside Chess, as a vehicle. Seirawan makes clear in an e-mail
that he wanted to set up a separate active chess rating list, not allow the
dilution of the main list with rapid games. Obviously, working on a joint project
with FIDE was not going to put Seirawan in Kasparov’s good graces. This was
a precursor to the more dramatic breakdown to come.

Seirawan is adamant that his resignation stemmed from the publication of long
insider cover story on the GMA in Inside Chess, and that while Bessel
Kok served as the messenger, it was Kasparov’s request he was delivering when
he asked Seirawan to resign from the board. The problem with the article wasn’t
any “anti-Kasparov” content as much as its mere existence. According to Seirawan,
Kasparov (among others) was annoyed that Seirawan had included in his article
things from a closed GMA board meeting. Seirawan admits having made a mistake
in that regard, but he points out that Inside Chess subsequently published
several articles favorable to Kasparov. Seirawan says that things did not go
sour between them until six years later in Moscow when they were on opposite
sides of the big 1994 Olympiad and FIDE election brawl. He also points out that
Mazatlán was won by Karpov, who continued as a GMA board member.

Seirawan was active within the GMA despite his resignation from the board, where
he was replaced by another American GM, Maxim Dlugy. He says he held no grudge
against Kasparov and was even a little relieved because of the extensive travel
required to attend GMA functions from his home in Seattle. In Seirawan’s own
words on his resignation: “Furthermore, I often called, faxed and helped Angela
and Lubosh both with a myriad number of trivial matters, contacts, player names,
journalists, letters, even though I was off the board. Later, I was asked to
return, I politely declined. You see, I actually preferred to be off the board.
The GMA had been established and would do just fine without me! Even after resigning
I always had good discussions with Garry for the next several years! Skelleftea,
Barcelona ‘89, Moscow ‘90 and even in Murcia in ‘90 we were on good terms. So,
probably for the wrong reasons, Garry did us both a favor!”

Kasparov says he doesn’t remember the article being a serious enough issue to
lead to a fracture in the board, although Seirawan adds that Kavalek was also
quite displeased with a board member spilling the beans as a journalist. However,
we should again strive to avoid getting bogged down in minutiae when we are
really trying to establish what of the past can be of use to the present. In
general these discussions slip rapidly into “who said what to whom when and
where,” which really doesn’t help us much here in 2002.

THE BUSINESS OF BUSINESS

The issues that would dominate the GMA until its collapse were whether it should
develop its own commercial activities and whether it should work closely with
FIDE or be independent from it. Meanwhile, the series of World Cup tournaments
were perhaps the greatest series of events in chess history. They were huge
round robins, dwarfing current elite events like Wijk aan Zee, that brought
the world’s best players together again and again around the world. The prizes
were substantial, the conditions were good, and there were qualifiers that gave
up-and-comers a chance to join the fun. It was simply too good to last! Kasparov
explains what led up to the next crisis.

“The
GMA was doing extremely well. We had the successful World Cup cycle, major qualification
tournaments in Belgrade, Moscow, Palma de Mallorca, and everybody enjoyed it.
The GMA was rising but at the same time there was a growing crisis.

The GMA was a trade union and being such we had to deal with the commercial
aspects of things. We didn’t have a structure for this. If you want to build
a professional organization you need a commissioner, Yasser is right. You need
a commercial department. Every time I tried to build the commercial structure
of the GMA I would lose the vote in the board. We needed people organizing events,
finding sponsors, etc., it couldn’t be just us. We had the support of the players,
we could have dictated terms to FIDE, but we needed events.

Dlugy supported me while he was there, and then [Alexander] Beliavsky, so the
votes were always two to five! I understood Bessel’s reservations and those
of the other players who supported him. It would have meant a shift in the power
structure. The money people would have had more power, but I didn’t care. We
needed someone to raise money and run events, we could still have controlled
the rules.

There was a view among the players that we had to make a deal with FIDE. Now
we come to Murcia, but Murcia had a pre-history. One of the biggest misconceptions
is that the choice in Murcia was between war with FIDE promoted by Garry or
peace with FIDE. That was not the case. The choice was between what kind of
deal we would have with FIDE.”

It might be hard to imagine for those new to the scene, but back then the world
championship was far and away the biggest event going and controlling it meant
controlling the chess world. Almost all of FIDE’s operating funds came from
its cut of world championship matches and there was a tremendous amount of back-room
dealing when it came time to receive the bids. (Yes, different sites actually
competed to host the championship, with bids running over four million dollars.
Nowadays it’s like trying to give away a landmine.)

Kasparov was due to defend his title in 1990 and the GMA had grown powerful
enough to largely take control of the decision process. According to Kasparov,
some FIDE officials told him that at one point in 1989 Campomanes was just about
ready to give it up and close the doors on FIDE. The players were raising the
money and talking with the organizers themselves, particularly Kasparov working
with Ted Field, an American multimillionaire well known for his passion for
chess. It was one of his entertainment companies, Interscope, that sponsored
the New York leg of the 1990 world championship match.

Some GMA board members thought that things were going too far, while Kasparov
thought it was the perfect chance to break FIDE’s stranglehold on world chess.
This division came to a head when Bessel Kok and Jan Timman were sent to negotiate
an agreement with FIDE regarding the world championship.

“My view is that they negotiated a very bad document. Not because they had
bad intentions, but because it would take things all the way back to 1987 and
make the GMA an affiliate of FIDE. GMA would be subordinate to FIDE in the decision
making process. I was adamant, I vehemently opposed it. I could not accept that
we would move backwards and waste three years of our lives.

And then Murcia came, and I think Murcia was the tragedy of the GMA. It was
a lose-lose situation. Bessel said it best, it was like a plane with two engines.
If you remove one it crashes, and he was right. I didn’t push really hard in
Murcia. I think I could have won that vote. But if I had won, so what? I had
a match with Karpov coming up and frankly I didn’t know what to do.”

Seirawan agrees that this was the key moment that caused the collapse of the
GMA. He states that there was a great deal of confusion over what exactly was
contained in the agreement. “The GMA membership were told by the GMA Chairman,
Bessel Kok, that the contract was ideal and that it would place the GMA
on sound financial footing, whereas the GMA President, Garry Kasparov, complained
that the agreement would place the GMA in a subordinate role to FIDE. Who to
believe? How to vote?”

TO THE HUSTINGS!

The exact sequence of events is hard to nail down, particularly so many years
later. It makes one wish Kasparov and Timman had gotten together and written
a book on the history of the GMA, as Kasparov says he once suggested. Kasparov
was having trouble with the Soviet chess federation and also wanted a full vote
of the GMA membership to ratify agreements instead of having the board decide
things. This led Kasparov to reject an agreement that granted favorable conditions
to the GMA because it fell short of Kasparov’s desire for the GMA to be both
independent and in control. Kok and Timman both resigned when Kasparov wouldn’t
agree, only to come back after making a few changes in a Barcelona meeting.

Things broke down again and finally there would be a vote in the assembly to
decide. “Yes” to sign the agreement, “no” to hold out for more (or, more correctly,
less). Kasparov viewed it as between dependence or independence for the GMA
and accuses his opposition of turning the referendum into “for Garry or against
Garry.”

“We were calling the shots and we had to take control of the world championship.
And we could have done it. We had all the GMs behind us. We needed to go forward
with commercial sponsorship. FIDE was irrelevant, we could have gone forward
without them, build a new world! Let FIDE do what they want, we were in control.
Why the hell go back? Fresh start, fresh means! Everything was in place, a unique
situation. From late 1989 to early 1990 we could have done anything we wanted.”

There was quite a bit of campaigning and both sides accused the other of not
playing fair. Kasparov brought in a consultant to speak to the members about
the need for commercialization. Those in favor invested considerable effort
in convincing the many members from the newly opening Eastern Europe that a
further break with FIDE would create dangerous instability. Kasparov wanted
more control for the GMA and the players, the opposition said he wanted control
for himself.

Things had already reached the point of no return. Kasparov’s strong words above
cast doubt on Seirawan’s assertion that Kasparov “failed to understand that
his colleagues were well and truly split.” Perhaps no one understood what was
about to happen but Kasparov knew what he wanted. According to Seirawan, the
Soviet players supported Kasparov and the Western players mostly took Bessel’s
side, with few, if any, of the voters actually having laid eyes on the agreement
itself.

Kasparov states: “Eventually it ended up 62-65 and I bet 80% of the voters didn’t
understand what was at stake.” This might be a bit high, but since everything
was conducted in English and many members didn’t even speak English, it is fair
to say that the “what” was less important than the “who” for many in attendance.

“There was a parallel election of the board members. There were, I think,
128 votes for the board. I got 125 votes. After that vote I announced I would
suspend my membership on the board, and some people went bananas and they still
tell these stories now. But it was a clear-cut situation. They were saying that
I was the best fundraiser and important for moving the organization so they
wanted me in charge. I mean, in five of the biggest GMA tournaments I had raised
probably 90% of the money. But now, by a narrow vote, I would have to support
their policies. How can you remain the president of an organization if your
view was just defeated? I said I would go ahead and play my match with Karpov
and then perhaps come back.

But we all knew it was the beginning of the end. The GMA was strong, even dominant,
but after Murcia it just lost its cohesiveness. Such a close vote fragmented
the organization and it lost much of its power.”

Seirawan adds, “The lesson here is that future chess unions shouldn’t rely upon
mere majorities for such major controversial actions.” The logic of this is
powerful. Had a typical two-thirds majority been needed, the issue could have
been sent to a committee until it was better understood or until changes could
be made.

Kasparov and Seirawan both call the GMA period a golden age and both refer to
Murcia as a missed opportunity. Kasparov saw it as a chance to relegate FIDE
to a minor role in the affairs of chessplayers. Seirawan wishes that the dramatic
vote had never taken place echoes Kasparov’s “lose-lose” description when he
writes, “Had Kasparov won that vote, it would also have torn the GMA apart.”

The five tournaments Kasparov refers to are the three giant GMA pre-qualifiers
plus the Moscow qualifier and the Murcia rapid event. The bulk of the sponsorship
for the GMA World Cup events was brought in by the redoubtable Lubosh Kavalek.
He did most of his work on a commission basis, something that became a source
of internal friction at one point.

THE SCHISM HEARD ROUND THE WORLD

After Kasparov resigned from the board the GMA gradually collapsed. There was
too much bad blood, too little unity. If the assembly had been able to unite
on either side of the FIDE proposal (or even postponed the divisive decision)
it would have been much better than the down-the-middle split that occurred.
The World Cup cycle shut down and FIDE was back in charge. Kasparov was exhausted
after his 1990 match with Karpov and the next few years passed relatively quietly.
The GMA leadership passed to Timman and then to England’s Nigel Short, who would
soon be the first person in eight years other than Karpov to challenge Kasparov
for the title. The confluence of these factors led Kasparov to make what he
has called the worst blunder of his career.

“My frustration with the situation eventually led to a big mistake in 1993.
But I have to tell you that what happened in 1993 was also dictated by what
happened in the past. We had the usual crisis with the world championship. Campomanes
was playing one against the other, with Galicia, Manchester…, I don’t remember
all the bids. Manchester was the obvious choice.

You
can blame me for what happened but we can’t forget that Nigel Short called me
on the phone and said “Garry, do you want to play outside of FIDE?” I mean,
Short, who is now a big supporter of FIDE and kissing up to Ilyumzhinov, he
made this offer. Nigel did it for the money, but at that time I thought “great,
now with Nigel we can rally the support of the Western players.” We could have
momentum. That was a huge miscalculation. I thought we could revive the GMA,
which had pretty much collapsed by then, and Nigel was its last president. I
was thinking that Nigel represented the anti-Kasparov group in Murcia and now
he was making this offer. It was now me and Nigel, not Karpov, and we could
rebuild things and get support in Britain. Of course this was a horrible blunder.
Nigel had no support behind him at all, it was completely his personal desire.

In the cold light of morning I can tell you we could have made more money in
Manchester, and it was the best for everybody to make a deal with Campomanes
at the time. He had already agreed to give up some power and we could have done
things quietly, played the match under FIDE and dealt with rebuilding the GMA
later, after the match.

But things were moving quickly and [English GM and writer Raymond] Keene, who
saw that he had much to gain from a split, revealed the story in, I think, the
Telegraph, and this put me in an awkward position and he, and others,
pushed Nigel to the extreme. I still had a chance to tell Nigel to forget it,
but I had already given my word, and I stood by it. That turned out to be a
giant mistake. We had no support in the world of chess. Everywhere it was ‘chess
championship hijacked.’”

TWO WORLD CHAMPIONS AND THE RISE AND FALL OF THE PCA

Nowadays it is fashionable to look at that moment in 1993 as the chess world’s
lapsarian instant. Short and Kasparov created the Professional Chess Association
on the fly and left FIDE hanging in order to play their match in London. FIDE
reacted with equal destructiveness, removing the two renegades from the rating
list and staging their own world championship between Timman and Karpov, who
had both been defeated by Short in the candidates matches. The breach grew with
incredible speed. But Kasparov is not ready to let those with short memories
say that the years of the PCA were a complete waste.

“Yes, I made a mistake. A mistake that cost me strength as well as money.
My results in 1994 and 95 were not up to my standards, for example. But I’m
confused because everyone is talking about television and sponsorship and professionalism
these days, and it was all there.

The PCA was not a big organization but it had a commissioner, Bob Rice, and
a few people who helped the PCA operate. It had virtually no money and so no
administrative core. We spent all the money on the prizes, to impress the players,
which was probably a mistake looking back. We needed to strengthen the organization
but we gave all the money to the players.

It had commercial sponsorship, the only time in the history of chess that we
had the sponsorship of a blue-chip company, Intel. There was a two year contract.
It had never happened before and hasn’t happened since. There was television
coverage in limited fashion. The PCA Grand Prix, the speed chess events, were
on ESPN and EuroSport.

Okay, it wasn’t huge, it was quite small, but it was unique. It was something
that even the GMA had failed to do. The irony is that both parts of the solution
were there, but at different times. The GMA had no commercial solution and the
PCA had no trade union support. We needed both. That was the tragedy.

One of the incidents worth mentioning is that in 1995 we introduced a code of
ethics, under pressure from Intel. We needed to protect the sponsors and organizers.
It was ‘anti-Kamsky,’ nobody tried to hide that. He had made some statements
that irritated Intel and he was playing Anand for the right to face me in the
1995 New York world championship, and that was a potential disaster.

Then in Linares that year the players, led by Karpov and others, signed a petition
to protect what they called their “human rights” against this code of ethics.
This petition was not missed by Intel and it did not make them very happy. A
few years later FIDE introduced a draconian code of ethics and I didn’t see
any letter, any protest, about that. So these players have to bear some responsibility
for their actions, for us losing momentum.

You could dislike what I did, you could call me the hijacker of the world championship,
but at the end of the day I brought commercial sponsorship. We struggled but
we ran some great events, the Grand Prix was unprecedented. Kramnik, Anand,
Ivanchuk, they made a lot of money and they thrived thanks to these events.
And there was not a word of support from them. There was no support from the
elite but there were plenty of complaints and attacks and Intel saw this.”

There were indeed many vocal critics of the PCA at the time. Several players
considered it a rogue organization and refused outright to play in the PCA championship
cycle. But the majority benefited greatly from Intel’s money and the existence
of two world championship cycles. Of the top players, only Karpov, Salov, and
Seirawan refused to participate in any PCA event. Many players even played successfully
in both cycles at the same time, with Kamsky and Anand facing each other in
both the FIDE and PCA cycles. (Anand won in the PCA to play Kasparov, Kamsky
won in the FIDE match to face Karpov. Both lost the title match.)

KASPAROV AND FIDE?!

Kasparov again surprised the chess world when he made a rapprochement with Campomanes
to save the 1994 FIDE Olympiad and bring it to Moscow. There Kasparov tried
to engineer some sort of unification even if it meant making a deal with his
former worst enemy. But as often happened, when one side had a change of heart
the other side took it as a sign of weakness and slammed the door.

“I tried desperately to close the gap. In 1994 I went as far as trying to
make a deal with Campomanes in Moscow. I was talking about reunification and
they were adamant, “No unification, Kasparov wants to come back, no way!” Who
did this? The Western federations. They tried on legal issues to block Campomanes.
And in 1994 we saved the Olympiad. In only 55 days Andrei Makarov and I organized
the Olympiad in Moscow when the choice was that or no Olympiad at all. And everyone
heaped garbage on us, complaining about the conditions, criticizing constantly.

Ironically, this Olympiad brought in [current FIDE president Kirsan] Ilyumzhinov;
he made his first appearance at a FIDE congress. So I have a share of that responsibility,
I admit. Maybe I should receive a finder’s fee commission of all the prize money
he has paid out to other chessplayers over the years!

In the FIDE general assembly of 1995 in Paris it all came down to not granting
me 12-12 draw odds in a unification match. It was the Western federations again,
and this anti-Kasparov sentiment. I had to be “punished” for 1993. I insisted
that if I played against Karpov I deserved draw odds because I had already played
him, but if it was Kamsky then I could compromise. But they insisted that they
could not discriminate against “their champion” and things broke down. And many
people were quite happy to see this, to keep me outside and prevent unification.
In Moscow and then later in Paris those that opposed me torpedoed reunification.”

The 1994 FIDE election in Moscow could have been held in Florida. It saw every
parliamentary trick in the book, both dirty and clean, as well as a few tricks
that weren’t even in the book. The ticket of Kouatly and Karpov met resistance
by Makarov and Campomanes, now supported by none other than Garry Kasparov!
Some Western players reported being shocked by the strong-arm tactics and this
as much as anything ruined Kasparov’s hopes for a compromise with FIDE and a
potential reunification match. Seirawan gives it as the moment at which he and
Kasparov ceased being on the best of terms, at least for a time. It can only
be good that these two prime movers have now come together for the best cause.

INTEL GOES, AND A LEGEND IS BORN

By 1996 Kasparov and Karpov had won their respective matches and Ilyumzhinov
had taken over FIDE to begin his plan to remake the chess world in his image.
At the same time, the PCA ran into a brick wall when Intel declined to renew
their sponsorship of the Grand Prix. The conventional wisdom now is that Intel
pulled the plug when Kasparov played Deep Blue under the auspices of IBM, an
Intel competitor. You can see the frustration in Kasparov’s face when he hears
this story yet again.

“November, 1995 is when chess really hit its low. This was a crucial moment
and it is important to clear this up. Everyone simply repeats the fairy tale
that Intel pulled its sponsorship of the PCA because I played Deep Blue. Every
player and journalist just repeats this. At the end of November, 1995, I was
in London in the office of Rod Alexander [whose sports promotion company,
SBI, had Intel Europe as a client], and we got a call from Intel Europe.

Intel Europe, in Germany, they backed our idea, but they reported to the Intel
board. And the board rejected the sponsorship proposal. We wanted two more years,
and they supported us in Europe, but the board rejected it. That was at the
end of November, 1995, and I nearly died when I heard the news.

Why? They didn’t give their reasons, but the Germans told us, unofficially,
that there had been bad reports. That chess was struggling, having an endless
internal war, and that the PCA had failed to build up an internal administrative
structure. Yes, everything was true. That is why I don’t want these Grandmasters
hiding in the corners. I made mistakes, fine, but the fact that Intel stopped
their sponsorship is due to the lack of support and unity in the chess world
at that time and everyone was responsible. Those who wrote the letters, complained,
and blocked unification have their share of responsibility. Intel did not want
to be associated with it anymore. I raised the PCA, I protected it, I fought
as hard as I could to keep Intel and I failed.

Three weeks later I got the letter from ACM [the Association for Computing Machinery],
before Christmas. It was three weeks after the Intel call and you can ask David
Levy, or other people from there; I could track down the names. These were two
separate events; Intel’s decision was made earlier. I don’t have the exact date
of their decision, but when I was in Paris in November and played the final
PCA Grand Prix match, and I talked with Campomanes, we still expected Intel
to come back. So it was probably at the end of November.

The Deep Blue match was organized very quickly, there was no (as some suspect)
conspiracy about how it was organized. There were no IBM representatives anywhere
around the match at that time. It was organized by ACM and they didn’t expect
any public, journalists, or heavy interest in the match. The first game was
the surprise, with the huge interest shown by the world in the match. It was
a huge surprise for IBM and the organizers. But IBM was not even involved. It
was ACM and it was all organized very quickly around Christmas time.

I wish I had all these letters on hand and if it’s important, and someone insists,
and tells me I am lying, then I can start collecting all the data and all the
dates. But I want them to stop, Yasser and everyone else. I want them to stop
telling everyone “Oh of course, Garry went with IBM and played Deep Blue and
Intel dropped the PCA sponsorship.” It’s simply not true.”

Seirawan says he never heard anything about Intel abandoning the PCA prior to
the first Deep Blue match, and he is certainly not alone. The chain of announcements
that are public knowledge give credence to the “traditional” story that Intel
did not pull the plug until after the Deep Blue match. Seirawan recollects that
the Intel representative at the 1995 Kasparov-Anand match was “all smiles” and
committed to doing it again. Then, after the Deep Blue match was announced,
rumors began that said Intel might withdraw, and this was only confirmed publicly
after the Deep Blue match.

Since Kasparov’s London phone call refutes the conventional wisdom that was
so harmful to him at the time (“Kasparov sold out Intel and the players to line
his pockets with IBM cash” was the refrain) we are left wondering why Kasparov
has waited so long to clear things up. As Seirawan writes, “After Deep Blue,
it was confirmed, no Intel. What else could I think? Intel was upset was my
only conclusion. I didn’t know that they had definitely pulled out beforehand.
I’m quite happy to stand corrected. Had Garry at any time written me a letter
to correct the false impression that I was under, I would have published it
immediately!”

Considering Kasparov’s relationship with Seirawan and the rest of the chess
press at the time it is no surprise that he wasn’t writing many letters. But
his secretiveness definitely did not help his reputation and the IBM/Intel story
was rapidly accepted, however spurious it may have been. As Brian Friel wrote
in the play “Dancing at Lughnasa,” “What fascinates me about history is that
it owes nothing to fact. In that memory, atmosphere is more real than incident
and everything is simultaneously actual and illusory.”

Kasparov did try to jump into bed with IBM after the match, but was given the
cold shoulder. He tried to get a combined investment from them to support the
Grand Prix and other PCA activities along with the Deep Blue rematch. It was
a last-ditch effort to save the PCA and had it succeeded it would have put more
money into the pockets of chess professionals. (The latest twist is FIDE’s new
Grand Prix, which kicked off in Dubai this week. A knock-out series of tournaments
at rapid time controls, it has everything in common with the PCA Grand Prix,
except it is funded by Kirsan Ilyumzhinov instead of an Intel.)

Friends of Kasparov sponsored a Grand Prix event in Moscow in 1996 and then
the Credit-Suisse Masters tournament was transformed into another Grand Prix
event after Kasparov convinced organizer William Wirth. “And then that was the
end.”

LOOKING AHEAD

Kasparov finished by highlighting the various parallels that are appearing today.

“Look at what we were discussing in 1986, how FIDE was trying to replace
classical chess with rapid chess. Now it is happening again and we need to reach
a consensus and take action. I’m not calling for a boycott, we need to provide
alternatives.

From 1986 to 2000 I tried to create alternatives to FIDE. To create an alternative
force to balance the power, to raise sponsorship, to protect the players. So
I failed in the end, but I didn’t fail in a vacuum. Many professional players
did not support me, others attacked me directly. When they complain how FIDE
is calling all the shots now they have to take their share of responsibility
for the current situation. If you destroy the alternatives what do you expect
to happen?

The need for alternatives is greater now than ever before. I see the potential
for positive changes. There is a lot of frustration out there, you can see it
in all this activity. But unlike in the 1980s there is no unity in the chess
world. Today there are diverse interests and it will be hard to reach a consensus.
Frankly, I’m not terribly optimistic. It will be hard to bring all the parties
to the table. It seems they really don’t care.

Not to self-promote but at least I’ve always cared, always tried, and I’m still
ready to make compromises. I hope I’m not alone in this. If Yasser succeeds
in bringing everyone to the table, if Bessel can play the role he played 15
years ago, then I will be the happiest person. I wish them well and I am ready
to support these efforts.”

Seirawan concludes, “Garry is to be commended for his article and more importantly
for his undertakings. He has worked extremely hard trying to raise the level
of awareness and done his best to vitalize the sport. His efforts have been
extraordinary. While I have pointed out two areas of different views [His
resignation and the events in Murcia. –Mig], my admiration for what he achieved
with the GMA have never dimmed. The GMA’s were “golden years” for chess players
and if a future for professional players exists, a key will be to create a union
to protect their self-interest. If they can avoid the mistakes made by the GMA,
and yours truly, the rewards will be great. Hopefully, Garry’s article and this
contribution will help them to identify pitfalls and avoid repeating our mistakes.
My final parting word is to not forget that we live in a Human Comedy. Things
happen, good and bad. Face them with a sense of humor not foreboding and all
will be overcome.”

It might not be an entirely uplifting tale, but it gives us room for optimism.
Kasparov has grown weary of people saying that things would be better if he
just kept his mouth shut. For many years the chess world has enjoyed alternately
supporting and attacking Garry Kasparov, letting him be the leader and the lightning
rod. Now he is still willing to lend a hand, but it is clear that like the rest
of us he is waiting for someone else to pick up the torch that has burned him
a few too many times.

Of the current candidates for torch-bearer, Vladimir Kramnik has been quiet,
insisting against all evidence that the Dortmund qualifier will unite something
other than his bank account and a nice check. FIDE has not made a public comment
on Seirawan’s unification proposal but the whispering winds say that Prague
may bring a few surprises. Bessel Kok has organized a players’ workshop this
month and all the top players will be there. We can only hope that if history
does repeat itself, we will get the happy ending this time.

See also

5/25/2002 – The momentous Prague reunification is currently the central theme of discussion in the chess world.
The spiritus rector of the agreement was American grandmaster Yasser
Seirawan, who proposed the plan in February this year, and has devoted his life to its implementation ever since. Yasser has sent us part two of his gripping blow-by-blow
narrative of how it all came together.Discuss

5/27/2002 – Yasser Seirawan has delivered the final installment of his trilogy on the Prague reunification agreement. It is almost as long as Tolstoi's book – and just as gripping. Take half an hour off to read this momentous description of the chess world in turmoil. And if you want to know even more (for a doctoral thesis, maybe?), there is an extensive list of links to be found at the top of Yasser's article From a Fresh Start to a New Dawn part 3.Discuss

Discuss

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